Agricultural History Review, Volume 47 Part 1 (1999), pp. 58–77

From two viewpoints this article evaluates the tables in the 1851-81 Census Reports based on farlners' responses regarding farm size and employment. It is intended both as a guide to the tables, and to the strengths and limitations of the data contained in them. It also discusses the apparent strategies of the Census Office in relation to the wider concerns of census-taking and the collection of agricultural statistics. The information discussed is the most comprehensive of its kind for the period, but needs to be treated with considerable caution. Much of the difficulty lies in the intention of the Census Office to arrive empirically at a definition of'farmer' by collecting data, rather than by taking an arbitrary definition and applying it to the census process. 

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